You are getting this as I know you’ll appreciate even more underwater images of some creatures I’ve been lucky enough to watch on my last two days of snorkels at our local Peppy Beach. I’ll start with this fish called a White Ear, and is in fact a teenager. I can tell this as the adults are a unfirm brown or black, but the young start off with fluorescent blue lines that with age become spots that eventually disappear. The image doesn’t do this 10 cm long fish justice and the blue dots really do light up:
Next up is yet another jellyfish, that I assume is of the Combes family members as it has the same distinct ribs of fine hairs , called combes, which seem to light up. This one looked just like a molar tooth and if you looked at it side on was quite narrow:
The thing that really caught my eye was the size and it was easily double the size of my hand. It really is staggering how these gentle creatures survive in the ocean as even the striking of a flipper seems to break down, so I have no idea how they survive the rolling ocean with its swells, waves and tides:
Next up is yet another mass of tiny, what seems to be baby fish. But on closer inspection either they have legs or, as it not uncommon, their gills are on the outside of their bodies. So I’m not sure whether to plump for tiny cleaner shrimps or a shoal of baby fish. Either way it is great to see these no more than 1-2cm long whatever they are:
Previously I have come across the female Shaw’s Cowfish, in fact I have seen a stack of them so that I almost pass them over. But today I found the more colourful male of this fish, and he was indeed very striking. He moulded into the weed really well, but luckily the shallow waters of where I was made it hard for him to get away. I reckon he was fully grown being close to the maximum 20cm length that they grow:
I stumbled across this fully grown 25-30cm long Globe Fish a couple of times, again in the relative shallows. This one truly was magnificent and getting up so close to see every detail was awesome, there is no zooming in on this image and I could have touched it. Again well camouflaged in the mostly yellow and light brown weed but he didn’t seem to perturbed with my presence:
I was also lucky to see a solitary squid, I reckon he was a Bigfin Reef Squid and approx. 20cm long. I’ve seen these in more northern and warmer seas but not here before and thought they were quite social creatures travelling in groups. Unfortunately on this occasion I only saw the one and snapped an early picture even though it was from afar. I could see his eye watching me carefully and knowing this was one of the two most intelligent cephalopods, with only the octopus beating it, I realised that if I tried to duck dive he would be off like a shot. So after a while watching and taking images I duck dived and never saw it again:
This fish is a Banded Sweep and I see it on almost every snorkel, It seems to hover about and follow me around. I’ve been told they are often found near to where crayfish are hiding in the reef of Peppy Beach, as they share the caves and hollows used by the crays. They grow to some 45cm and unlike other types of sweeps this one has in its favour that it is not great eating. I was lucky to get a great snap of it while in the shallows:
Last up for this email is a little 1cm long creature that I have no idea as to what it is. When I first saw it I thought it was just another bit of flotsam but then I noticed a regular movement in it and as I watched and got closer it was clearly alive. The best I can come up with is possibly a baby sea or dancer slug, one to check out a bit more as it was an amazing little creature:
Sandbagged 